Thursday, April 30, 2015

We cannot do
everything at once, but we can do something at once.
- Calvin Coolidge

One of the
Biggest Government Lies:
“The Food We Eat is Safe”

The FDA didn’t perform any kind of testing in
regards to rBST. FDA official John Scheid admitted to the Associated Press that
the agency based their approval
simply on a summary provided by Monsanto.

Former FDA veterinarian Richard Burroughs,
who was a lead reviewer in this hormone’s approval process, said the drug “was
approved prematurely without adequate information”… and that “the whole rBST
thing was bad science and bad regulation.”

The European Union even investigated the
FDA’s faulty approval process and concluded that the hormone’s safety had never
been proved.

Canadian scientists also analyzed the FDA’s
approval process and wrote a lengthy and scathing report. If you google “Gaps
Analysis Report”, you can read it online.

Unless it’s labeled organic or “rBST free”,
everything in the dairy section of your grocery store, including yogurt and
cheese, probably includes milk from cows injected with this hormone.

Unfortunately, milk is just the tip of the
iceberg.

With the help of the FDA, GMOs have spread
throughout our food supply. It’s virtually everywhere.

Why would
the FDA put Americans at risk?

Well, it turns out the Deputy Commissioner
for Policy at the FDA in 1993 had strong links to Monsanto. He had worked for
the company, before joining the FDA.

In fact, after helping secure the approval of
rBST, he went back to Monsanto to work as its Vice President for public policy.

Today, he’s once again at the FDA, working
closely with the Obama administration on food safety.

Well, once you understand the strong link
between government and big corporations that produce GM food, the answer is not
exactly a surprise.

But that doesn’t make it any less disturbing.

Big corporations, lobbyists and politicians
will do anything to keep you in the dark. Why? Because there’s big money
involved. That’s the cold truth of our food supply.

If word gets out that genetically modified
foods are potentially dangerous, the food companies’ billions of dollars in
profits will be in SERIOUS jeopardy.

The genetically modified crop market is huge.
In the last decade alone, Monsanto, which controls 90% of the market, has made
more than $116 billion in sales.

And they use a lot of that money to make sure
nobody will interfere with their business.

For example, in recent years they have spent
over $52 million in lobbying to make sure they get the most favorable
legislation possible.

And
that has paid off… as the New York Times said, “the White House worked behind
the scenes to help Monsanto get the regulations that it wanted.

For years, polls have shown that about 93% of Americans support the labeling of
foods that contain genetically modified organisms.

But the biotech industry, with the help of
the FDA, has decided that we don't need to know when there are potentially
harmful ingredients in our food. So, GM foods are not required to carry
identifying labels.

We are being denied the fundamental right to
know what's in our food - a right that more than 50 other nations, including
China and Russia, offer their citizens.

It’s estimated that 70% of processed foods
contains genetically modified organisms. But because of the lack of labels,
Americans have no clue.

Additional
goodies you’ll find useful…

InstantWatcher.com: I found this site through a Consumer Reports newsletter I
receive each month. The site helps you find titles to stream from either
Netflix or Amazon. It can also be a great tool when you are trying decide which
service is best for you and your family.

I don't have space for a big
garden. I just use a small portion of my patio. Last year, my garden supply
center had a great deal on broken bags of potting soil, so I bought six of
them. I set them out on my patio and cut a few slits in the bottom and a hole
in the top. I planted tomatoes, cucumbers, and peppers in the bags. I watered
them just like I would normally and had a mini-veggie garden!

Video:
Barter SmarterWhen cash is scarce, more and more folks are
going back in time to the barter system, trading goods and services for the
things they need. This week, The Ultimate Cheapskate gives us his best
bartering tips and tricks!

17 Clever
Food Storage Tricks

If you’re like most of us, building your food storage out can be a daunting proposition.
Not only can it be costly, but it also requires figuring out what kind of food
to store, when it needs to be rotated, how much to buy per person, and more.

One of the biggest hang-ups of them all though, is WHERE
to keep your food storage. Many of us live in smaller footprints
as it is, without trying to cram in several months’ worth of food somewhere (or
we just have so much junk it’s practically spilling out of our houses!).

Even so, with a little creativity, there are likely some
additional places you can store food in your home, no matter what your living
situation is.Click here to find out what they are.

FINALLY,
according to John Williams of shadowstats.com, if honest numbers were
used they would show that U.S. GDP growth has been continuously negative since
2005. There are many of us, myself included, who do not trust government
numbers for employment or other economic numbers…which ultimately could mean
another economic downturn is headed our way.

Stay alert my friends!

The Poor
Man is donating 50% of the net profits from all its online sales to the
disaster relief program in Nepal…I thank you for your support!

DIY Masonry Fire Pit

Now this is something I plan to build at our mini-farm
this summer…mighty nice!

This fire Pit has become the main attraction at our
house. We have since made a habit of sitting out here with or without an actual
fire. The stone was a potpourri of closeouts. The bricks were picked up cheap
from a job that never used some over orders. The block, sand, and mortar are
just everyday Lowes stuff. All said and done I probably had $200 in it. If I
had to buy the other stuff at regular price it would probably be around $500.
Plus sweat.

Study: One-Third of Americans Have Less Than $1000 Toward Retirement

We have previously
discussed the income
disparity in the country and the alarming lack of savings for a great
percentage of our fellow citizens. Now a study shows that roughly one third of
the population have saved less than $1,000 for retirement. Equally surprising
is the estimate of what will be needed to live comfortably in the future.Read more of this post

How to build an emergency fund when you're
living paycheck to paycheckread
more here

One
of the best gardening decisions I ever made: landscaping my backyard with
edibles. It took some time to get everything established, but now my yard is
as pretty as it is tasty. Here are some edibles to consider adding to your
yard.

Here's a simple way to keep food cooler outdoors. You'll
need two unglazed clay pots. One should be larger than the other. Put the
smaller one inside the larger one and fill the space outside the smaller one
with sand. Pour water on the sand until it's saturated. Then put your food in
the smaller pot and cover with a damp cloth and a heavy lid. The inner
temperature will be about 20 degrees cooler than the outside air until the
water evaporates. I've never used it on things that spoil quickly like potato
salad, but it's great for veggies and fruits.

McDonald’s has announced that it will be closing 700 “poor performing” restaurants in
2015. Why would McDonald’s be doing this if the economy was actually
getting better?

>The number of publicly traded companies
in the United States that filed for bankruptcy during the first quarter of 2015
was more than double the number that filed for bankruptcy during
the first quarter of 2014.

Glance into the world just as
though time were gone: and everything crooked will become straight to you!>Nietzsche

Think in terms of probabilities -- and not in
terms of hard truths. Expect the unexpected.

Think about the concept of the
Copenhagen Window

The interpretation is the notion that the future is
nothing more than an expanding set of probabilities, time lines of possibility
that continuously collapse into one reality as observances of measurements mad;
kind of the standard interpretation of quantum mechanics.

There is no
crystal ball for predicting one outcome then proceeding on a single path.”

Rather, it’s best to adapt to new information as it comes. Stay nimble.

You have to
think in terms of probabilities -- and not in terms of hard truths. Expect the
unexpected…and with our political leaders, we can always anticipate the
unexpected with one exception:Always follow the money!In Washington, nearly everything happens
because of money, who gets it and who has it removed from their pocket.

For
instance, when I review my various resources on the economy I look at what our
Fed is doing, what China is doing, the price of precious metals and so on.If gold suddenly falls or triples in price, I
get concerned…does this indicate a crash, government crisis, international
crisis or???

The Global
financial system is unfathomably complex and most folks know nothing of how it
works.If they did, they would tremble
in fear.

Earlier in
the year a prestigious gathering of the International Monetary Fund held at the
annual Davos Economic Forum issued a dire warning about America’s financial
system, specifically in regard to the shadow banking system [I wrote about this
extensively two years ago but few paid attention].

The
Telegraph summarized
it:“Shadow banking now poses top risk
to US stability…non-financial lending has reached $15 trillion since the
collapse of a few years ago and is outside the control of authorities”

Federal
Reserve Chairwoman Yellen has said this about shadow banking, “We simply have to expect that when we draw
regulatory boundaries and supervise intensely within them, that there is the
prospect that activities will move outside those boundaries and we can do
nothing.”

I suspect
she was referring primarily to the derivative market, which are essentially
unregulated, high-risk credit bets…the same crap
which nearly collapsed the monetary system in 2008 after Clinton eliminated the
Banking Act of 1933, which is also called the Glass-Steagall Act.

Currently, central
bankers around the world are all fighting currency wars. In all major financial centers at once --
from Washington, D.C., to Moscow to Beijing.

I look at
factors like inflation [not the BS stats provided by government agencies],
social disorder [which are increasing in a nation of have-nots], the movement
of government agencies in terms of how they create and enforce laws which bash
the Bill of Rights, how law enforcement engages its citizens while arming
themselves for civil war.

Are we ready
for another major worldwide credit crunch? Today, the entire global
financial system resembles a colossal spiral of debt. Just about all
economic activity involves the flow of credit in some way, and so the only way
to have “economic growth” is to introduce even more debt into the system.
When the system started to fail back in 2008, global authorities responded by
pumping this debt spiral back up and getting it to spin even faster than
ever. If you can believe it, the total amount of global debt has risen by
$35 trillion since the last crisis. Unfortunately,
any system based on debt is going to break down…simply a matter of when.

Consider that China has seen more debt growth
than any other major industrialized nation since the last recession. This
debt growth has been so dramatic that it has gotten the attention of
authorities all over the planet…

Singling out China in particular, Schaeuble
noted that “debt has nearly quadrupled since 2007″, adding that it’s “growth
appears to be built on debt, driven by a real estate boom and shadow banks.”Sound familiar?

Poor earnings reports in the U.S. are
starting to rattle investors…we just learned that GE lost 13.6 billion dollars in the first quarter…

One week following the announcement that it
would dismantle most of its GE Capital financing operations to instead focus on
its industrial roots, General Electric reported a first quarter loss of $13.6
billion.

The results were impacted by charges relating
to the conglomerate’s strategic shift. A year ago GE reported a first quarter
profit of $3 billion.

That is a lot of money.

How in the world does a company lose 13.6
billion dollars in a single quarter during an “economic recovery”?

In earnings news, American Express Co. late
Thursday said its results were hurt by the strong U.S. dollar, which reduced
revenue booked in other countries. Chief Executive Kenneth Chenault reiterated
the company’s forecast that 2015 earnings will be flat to modestly down year
over year. Shares fell 4.6%.

Advanced Micro Devices Inc. said its
first-quarter loss widened as revenue slumped. The company said it was exiting
its dense server systems business, effective immediately. Revenue and the loss
excluding items missed expectations, pushing shares down 13%.

And just like we saw just before the
financial crisis of 2008, Americans are increasingly having difficulty meeting their
financial obligations.

At this
point, the American consumer is pretty well tapped out. If you can
believe it, 56 percent of all Americans have subprime credit today,
and domestically we’ve seen the biggest spike in credit application rejections ever recorded.

From what I
see, we are entering a place that offers no solutions and plenty of bad
decisions from the political elite and the bankers which control them…

Interview with Canadian Billionaire Rick
Rule - The Global Financial System Is Now A Confidence Game

Something
the Poor Man has discussed often: A new country which is FREE - A drum roll
please…

A Czech man has created a
new country. He's calling it Liberland to celebrate the sort of liberty-based
ideals championed by libertarians. But, his project is much more than just a
libertarian enclave. Rather, it's a big step forward for freedom on Planet
Earth.

Liberland
is a new European country founded upon the principles of freedom, and that’s
why I’ve applied for citizenship just three days after its founding.

Vit Jedlička is a member of
the conservative Party of Free Citizens in the Czech Republic and is the self-appointed
President of Liberland, which sits on unclaimed terra nullius territory between Serbia and
Croatia. The 3 square miles is a place where taxes are optional and military
does not exist.

CHOOSE ONE: Further work on the mini-farm or
vacation in AZ. For now, we're using the few good months of weather in MI to
work at the goal of creating a100% self-sufficient, off-grid homestead.
Deer, weather along with my up and down health took their usual toll. We'll
need to replace all the fruit trees we had planted two years ago in addition to
the other projects. And the price of everything continues to escalate...while
at the same time online sales [for everyone we know] continued to
decline...some days I feel like chucking it all, buy a houseboat and do a lot
of fishing.

From Home Farming Boxes to Plug-In Planters

In commercial and home applications, hydroponic gardening
has proven itself a valuable way to conserve space and water when growing
plants. This ultra efficient system is ideal for gardeners of all levels,
especially since it can be so low maintenance. Appealing to beginner green
thumbs, products like Eliooo teach you how to assemble a hydroponic system from
IKEA boxes, while NIWA comes as a pre-assembled system that connects to a
smartphone for monitoring. For personal use, the best part is that you can actually
grow plants like lettuce and tomatoes to eat at home.

Since hydroponics can be vertically arranged, this could mean that there will
be a huge shift in the way traditional agriculture is approached in both small
and large scale applications.

The Hyundai Kitchen Nano Lets Users Grow Their Own Organic Veggies

For those green freaks out there, the Hyundai Kitchen
Nano seems like a pretty good option to start eating local -- really
local. The kitchen garden is a device that lets users grow all their own
organic vegetables, all with the appropriate amount of light and nutrition.

The Hyundai Nano Garden uses hydroponics instead of any pesticides and
fertilizers to give you the most organic, fresh food at hand. The device
actually lets users know when to give water or nutrients so you can get the
greenest vegetables possible.

Also Noted…

The ‘Click & Grow Smartpots’ are optimal gifts for
environmental tech enthusiasts who lack green thumbs. Owners of the planters
merely have to fill the device with water, the subsequent fertilization, airing
and watering is then done automatically.

This electronic approach to gardening is battery-operated. The company prides
itself on Click & Grow Smartpots easy-to-use functions, requiring minimal
attention despite its production of plants and edibles like basil. Users will
also be alerted should the batteries die with a small flashing light.

As the element of labor is altogether removed here, busy workers can take on
elaborate cultivation projects without having to master the art of
horticulture, a feature that will bring foliage displays to the most unlikely
spots.

Care Connect USA. Everything from utilities assistance to tax
debt relief. It's been so popular that thousands of company HR departments use
it with their employees, as do many governmental social service agencies. In
short, it's been a great resource. Calls are free and the advice is free.

Here’s a post on who's all checking your credit score. It includes a link where you can get a free
credit score and learn about your credit monitoring and protection too. I know
that a lot of people put it off. I just went through the process. It took about
four minutes. They did need a little personal information, but did NOT require
a credit card.

An Extra Income SourceLucky you, you've got a good-paying, full-time
job in what you believe is a recession-proof business, the Federated Flyswatter
Company. But, bad news might be lurking just below the horizon. The China-based
Wang Dang Flyswatter Works is thinking about buying your company outright, and
if it does, you might be laid off. During any period of economic uncertainty,
it's definitely not the time to hunker down and hope for the best. It's time to
find or build a second source of income before you need it. Read
more.

Since we recycle and compost, we don't create a lot of
kitchen trash, so we don't have to take out the trash nightly. We were having a
problem with some trash odors. I started putting a little baking soda in the
trashcan liner. It soaks up odors without adding any unwanted fragrances to my
kitchen. Plus, it's all natural!

A Parting Thought...

We are the American sucker,
easily fooled and bamboozled by the political elite.

In 2014, police in the United States killed 1,100 people. During that same year, police in
Canada killed 14 people, police in China killed 12 people and police in Germany didn’t kill anyone at
all.

Yours for the hell of it...

Bruce 'the Poor Man'

Books, Art, Video – the saucy, the odd, the retro,
even the practical…